The effect of lane-changing time on the dynamics of traffic flow

Abstract

In this paper, the lane-changing time is considered in the cellular automata models for traffic flow. The lower the velocity of a vehicle, the longer the lane-changing time. The simulations are carried out in the two-lane system and the on-ramp system. When the lane-changing time is taken into account, the maximum flux per lane is reduced in the twolane system compared with the original two-lane model, and it is even lower than that of single-lane road when a lane-changing takes longer time; the capacity drop can be reproduced in the on-ramp system. © 2009 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.